Wormleysburg Variety #5: Leave It for the Trolls
Vehicles did not always float along roads the way they do now. In my youth, and even in my middle age, travel meant physical contact between the pavement and wheels. The form of vehicles followed their function, or at least their shape was said to have purpose, reducing wind resistance and improving the efficiency of how the engines burned fuel. Now even a trash can is propelled with the same ease of acceleration as a sports car, if it has been treated appropriately.
One chooses a speed, syncs with the magdrift, and whoosh, away one goes. It’s a prime example of the sort of absurdity passing for progress that I appreciate so much. It’s amusing to me. It makes me want to stay alive. Well. That and bitterness toward a society that would rather lock me away and speed along my demise than see me on the list of centenarians, those bastards. I’ll show them.
The trash can pulls up to the front of a run-down two-family house. There is a sofa on the front patio. “Oh, sofa. Oh, yes, sofa,” I say.
Blue-hair gives me back my cane and assists me to the patio. “I’ll be right back,” she says then. “I need to get the sled.”
“And what about your package?” I ask.
“What?” My voice hadn’t come out loudly enough.
“You were waiting for a delivery at the landing pad.”
“Leave it for the trolls,” she says, using an expression I am not familiar with but can comprehend the basic meaning of. “I don’t need that package if you can get me across state lines.”
I keep waiting for her to remember that I don’t know her name. I assume that she doesn’t know mine, for she has not commented on its eccentric Italian-ness. I wonder when was the last time she met someone who wasn’t able to see her profile.
She opens the door to the first floor of the house.
The pain lunges. Blue-hair is out of sight. I grasp at the pavement, no longer standing.
Help. Show me your future. I almost made it. How did I almost make it?
Help. Help. Or maybe this is the best I could have hoped for.